Indigenous science begins with an apprehension of the Whole, only very
carefully and on close inspection reaching tentative conclusions about
any Specificity.

Indigenous science is based on a profound immersion in and awareness
of the whole circumstance. Rather than mistrusting personal
experience, Indigenous science has learned to thrive on it. . . .

I don't want to give you the impression that this transmittal is based
on automatic lineal descent. It's not. In this tradition, a man learns
these things from a woman, if possible, and a woman learns them from a
man. That way you keep things in balance. It gives you an
understanding of the other half of life and prevents some of the
competition that can often come in when you learn from someone who is
also male, also female. . . .

One of the attitudes taught in my tradition is the Rule of Six. The
Rule of Six says that for each apparent phenomenon, devise at least
six plausible explanations, every one of which can indeed explain the
phenomenon. There are probably sixty, but if you devise six, this
will sensitize you to how many there may yet be and prevent you from
locking in on the first thing that sounds right as The Truth. . . .

From an Indian perspective, the priesthood nature of Western
science is anathema. My own tradition disbelieves in experts.That which enables, disables also means that a physicist will
fail in understanding in many other areas, precisely because of the
amount of time she/he spends on physics and therefore not on other
things. Such people are not considered experts, but those
extensively informed on part of the whole. They are listened to
not on a priesthood basis, but on the basis of their having
information others may not yet havejust as vice versa.

The search for greater wholenesswhich has no room for
expertiseis unending!

Any highly trained person will of course have a particular
viewand therefore has a special responsibility to listen before
speaking in any discussion of what the people may choose to do. Any
person in a group who gets out of touch with his, with her community,
is separated therefrom. Although I don't think there is the same
negative connotation as there is in English, a shaman out of touch
with her, with his community takes on aspects of the wizardan
isolated person who can inadvertently or on purpose do things that are
harmful to the community. The process of Western expertise
would be seen as a process of encouraging people to be isolated from
the rest of their community in some way. . . .

The basis of learning, the basis of the pedagogy, is to cease
preventing people from learning things for themselves. This way of
thinking, what goes on in here, can really be taught from the inside
out. When it's taught from the outside in, someone else comes between
you and yourself, and that's not considered a wise idea. That's the
tradition.

In one of your papers on Perennial Wisdom it says that the Native
tradition is nature-focused. I would like to modify that a little. I
would like to say that Indian traditions are nature-inclusive. You do
not see man and nature as separate from each other, but you see
yourself in the context of an interrelated whole instead.

. . . The idea is that everybody learns, but you need to figure out
how a child learns in order to design a learning circumstance in which
each individual can teach themselves. The idea is always to teach
yourself. In fact there is no word teach, or there didn't used
to be, in the fundamental language.

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/NAworldview.html

To contact Paula Underwood at the Learning Way Company
call 800/995-3320, or write PO Box 216, San Anselmo, CA 94979